New Client

This is for a great new client of mine. She has a company that empowers women to purchase their own cars. She wanted something cute, sexy, with a sassy look. I drew her completely on the Wacom (the car was still on paper and scanned in, though). Yep, starting to get more comfortable with that. I hope to soon be paperless all the time!

Livedraws

Here's some more recent live drawings from gigs. I'm really studying Hank Ketcham (Dennis the Menace) lately, adding him to my usual studies of Hirschfeld and the like. Really studying postures, and clothing folds, etc.

Neat Handwriting pays off

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a really nice lady. Seems she and her kids had been drawn a few weeks ago at a gig at Disney, but her husband didn't sit for his caricature and later decided he wished he had. I was the only artist at the event (like usual). So, the next day, they went to MGM and got him drawn at the retail stands. They hated it!

Well, when they got back home, they somehow tracked me down. They've now commissioned me to do a caricature of the husband/Dad. At first I thought Disney had just given her my business email (www.caricatureconnection.com). Then I realized she had written me at my PERSONAL email. Curious, I asked her how she'd found me. Seems she'd read my signature on the pics I'd done for her and the kids, and GOOGLED my name. She'd shot photos of me drawing the kids, so that also helped her, since I seem to pop up on GOOGLE an annoying amount of times. What's really amazing here is that I usually have REALLY crappy handwriting. Just ask my eight year old, who's always buggin me about it. But, I guess I've learned my lesson. I never would've gotten this job if she hadn't been able to read my signature.
Thank God this night I wrote legibly. Good, clear handwriting can be a real sales tool in and of it's own. Particularly when you have a weird name like mine.

Here's the photos she sent of that gig:

Shark Divin'

Months ago, me and my honey went to one of these charity benefit dinners we try to go to a couple of times per year, and we bid on a few things in the silent auction. Barbie begged me to let her bid on the "Shark Dive" package from Sea World, knowing that I would be reluctant to go with her, since I'm a big wuss. She assured me "We probably won't win, and besides, it's for charity...".

Yeah, well, we WON.

Figures.

Anyway, yesterday was the day. I tried not to think about it (remember, I'm a wuss), and just accepted my fate. I'm glad I did. We had an amazing time. Toured through the park, Barbie rode The Kraken (again... Me=Wuss), and even saw a couple of caricaturist friends (hi, Maria!).

The Shark Dive, by the way, was WAY cool, but the time with "my girl" was WAY cooler. Thirteen and a half years, and going stronger than ever. God is good.

More Recent Live ones

Man, I know the photos of these bite, coming from my digital cam, but I adjusted the levels as much as I possibly could. Plus, added those nifty color backgrounds on a few, to try and help make up for the fuzziness.

Hope ya see something ya like...

New Live Gig pics

I've been working a lot of gigs lately, so here's some pics from them that I liked. Sorry about the weird colors...my light on my easel casts a yellow tint to everything, and then I have to try to color correct it all in photoshop when I download from the camera. I don't draw on blue or gray paper or anything...but I DO shade in with gray markers. Interesting, as I post these, I notice they're in three distinctly different styles, yet were all done the same week. The guy sitting, and the coffee guy were from the same gig, even. I tend to do that...switching styles rapidly, depending on the face. It's something my buddy, Joe Bluhm, and I used to do when we worked gigs together back in the good old days..whatever style we thought we could best "capture" the person in, that's the style we used. Really kept us on our toes, so we didn't fall into "generics"....